Читать книгу The Gold Thief - Justin Fisher, Justin Fisher - Страница 19

ed’s head was reeling when he walked into the meeting room. His quiet word with Benissimo was now to be a larger affair and Madame Oublier’s arrival had stirred the troupe into wild panic. Rugs and wall hangings, fresh sawdust and the circus’s best bunting had been hurriedly arranged in a tent where they could talk, away from prying eyes and ears. When Ned walked in, Scraggs the cook was barking orders at a team of kitchen gnomes who were helping him to set everything up.

“What’s got into him?” whispered Ned to Lucy.

As well as having one of the filthiest cooking aprons Ned had ever seen, the clearly agitated cook also had a large set of tusks, the nose of a pig, and the hearing of a bat.

“Madame Oublier – met her, have you?” Scraggs snarled back.

“No,” smirked Ned.

“For starters she’s French. Imagine Monsieur Couteau, the finest blade in Europe; now make him more serious and a witch that has issues with dust.”

Behind him, Julius, Nero and Caligula, the circus’s resident pixies, were attempting to lay out a collection of biscuits for their important visitor. To the rest of the world they looked like performing monkeys in matching bellboy outfits and caps, but – without their glamours – to Ned and the troupe they were mischievous blue-skinned terrors. For every carefully laid out biscuit, they swallowed at least three others.

“Scraggs, old bean, calm down. She is perfectly amiable as long as everything’s clean,” chuckled George, who seemed to be enjoying the chaos enormously – and despite his troubled heart, so was Ned.

Scraggs looked down at his apron and started to sweat profusely, at which point Ned saw Caligula – or was it Nero? – dropping a full tray of chocolate eclairs on the sawdust by their feet. Scraggs responded by pulling a rolling-pin from his belt, and the three emperors bolted for the exit.

“All right, all right, that’s quite enough. Get back to the kitchen before you have a heart attack, and take your gnomes with you,” ordered Benissimo, who had finally stopped pacing the floor of the tent, though his moustache was still in full twitch.

A very relieved cook and his diminutive accomplices did as they were told. No sooner had they left the tent than Ned heard a loud gong being struck outside. Madame Oublier had arrived.

Ned leant across to Whiskers, who was still perching happily on Lucy’s shoulder.

“Not a squeak out of you. Madame O is a VIP. And if you’re there, Gorrn, that means you too.”

Something on the floor undulated and Whiskers gave Ned a short but courteous blink.

Madame Oublier entered the tent with little fuss. She was without doubt the most heavily tattooed person Ned had ever seen, in either the known world or the Hidden. She was elderly and silver-haired, much like Kitty, the troupe’s old Farseer, though with none of her pink and white garb or eccentric charm. The Twelve’s Prime was dressed from head to toe in unapologetic black. For a moment Ned felt a pang – how he wished dear Kitty was still with them and especially now.

The elderly Farseer was also slight, calm and quiet, because she did not need to be anything else. To the travelling kind, Madame Oublier’s word was law.

Behind her were two dwarven berserkers. From the plaits of their beards to the blue woad markings on their faces, Ned could tell they were high-ranking. Though small in stature, berserkers were almost unstoppable in a fight, as Ned had found out at the battle of St Clotilde’s.

Ned also knew that Oublier did not usually employ bodyguards; she was a formidable force in her own right. If she was travelling with specialist muscle, then things were indeed dire behind the Veil.

She took a seat and studied her surroundings without addressing anyone. George held his breath as she peered at a cup and saucer, probing them for any evidence of dust. There was a slight pout of the lips, her eyes flicked to Benissimo, and finally she spoke.

“Bon. Coffee, black.”

“Madame O,” said Benissimo, as he poured her a cup.

A face that had as many wrinkles as tattoos broke into a much-needed smile.

“It is good to see you, old friend, zo I wish ze times were brighter.” She looked to Ned, and her eyes softened. It was a look that ran straight through him, as if she could see right into his troubled heart.

“You are always welcome, Madame, under my or any other tent.”

Madame Oublier sipped from her cup of coffee, or at least that was how she started. What began as a sip soon turned into a violent and guttural slurp. Her eyes clamped shut, her cheeks turned pink and Madame Oublier, quite possibly the most formidable woman Ned had ever seen (besides his mum), downed the entire cup in a noisy and violent gulp. No one said a word; as much in awe as he was, Ned had to hold back the laugh that was now lodged in his throat.

It was clearly a blend that she didn’t like and, ignoring her own greedy glugging, Madame Oublier glanced at Scraggs’ assortment of nibbles with nose-curling disdain before scanning the faces at the table. One by one she looked at each of them gathered there, then lingered for a while on Lucy, who for some reason could not meet her gaze.

“How are you, child?” she asked.

“Fine, Madame Oublier, thank you,” said Lucy quietly, who at that precise moment looked anything but.

The Farseer’s lips pursed. It seemed very much to Ned like the two of them had met before.

“We shall see. And tell me, where is ze conjuror?”

“Resting. The return of our young Engineer proved to be too much excitement,” explained Benissimo.

“Keep a close eye on him.”

“Always, Madame,” said the Ringmaster solemnly.

Ned glanced at him. Why did Jonny Magik need a close eye? Surely he was Benissimo’s friend? But before he could dwell on that or Lucy’s obvious discomfort, he was met by the Farseer’s eyes again.

“Now, it is ze boy that I have come to see. Dear Ned, after everything your family have already endured, I am so sorry. If you will permit, I wish to take a peek inside your mind.”

Ned froze. The only other person to “take a peek” had been the dearly departed Kitty, and she had done so by slapping his face.

“Be still, Monsieur Ned. I will not hurt you.”

She leant across the table and rested her hand on his before closing her eyes. For a brief moment something in him lifted and he felt the beginnings of a glimmer of hope. Madame Oublier was an intimidating woman and he sensed within her a powerful force matched only by well-hidden kindness.

“Allow yourself some light, child, not all is lost. I fear ze taking of your parents is one piece of a much larger puzzle, and to return them safely to you, we will need to do much digging. Tell me, Ned, at your home did you come across any liquid? Anything zat looked like mercury?”

With everything that had happened, Ned had forgotten all about it.

“Yes! Whiskers took a sample, but … how do you know?”

Ned’s Debussy Mark Twelve was preparing to “excrete” the liquid from Lucy’s shoulder, when Madame Oublier stopped him with a raised palm.

“No need, little clock, I know already what it is. We have seen it before.”